Vemico V1 Wifi 4K Action Camera with Extra 1050 mAh Battery

Currently discounted on Amazon to just £33.77 this new action camera from Vemico falls into the budget range for the price but not the features. A year or so ago you could not get a decent sports camera for under £150 but excellent cameras can now be found for less than half that amount. This one boasts some high-end features for what seems a ridiculously low price.

The camera and accessories arrived packaged in a large and rather upmarket box which belies the low price. You get plenty of kit for your money as my unboxing video shows. A full range of accessories and mounts are included including a send battery and external charger. The only omissions are the lack of a carry case and SD card. It is a pity about the SD card as they are cheap enough these days and would not add greatly to the cost and would allow the camera to be used straight from the box.

The User Guide is reasonably well printed and easy to read and informative but somewhat small and hard to read. I attach a copy of the guide to my unboxing video. Run the video full frame and pause as needed to read it.

The action camera itself, which resembles almost exactly every other action camera of this type, is certainly better than I expected for the money. Video quality is good but not exceptional, but a definite step up from many of the cheaper no-name GoPro clones. The 170° angle of view is great but with the barrel distortion common to all cameras of this type. There was a time when this would have been seen as a high-end camera and now standards are moving higher even in the budget market. This camera does a perfectly decent quality 4K@30fps – the exact size of the claimed 4K is not defined in the manual but usually, this taken to be 3840×2160 -as well several other modes including 1080@60fps and 720P slow motion at 90fps. Still, images were good, far sharper than I expected and with only a slight magenta cast in some light conditions. The 20fps burst mode at 16M is a nice bonus. However, with both still and video, I noticed a tendency for highlights to burn out. That said, with a right subject in even lighting it was capable of producing excellent results for both video and stills. Remember that the sample footage in my unboxing video will have been heavily compressed during posting and not reflect the true resolution.

We are told it is waterproof to 40M, better than most budget action cameras claim, but there is no mention if this means it has been tested and rated IP68 or what. I would prefer a more precise definition before diving with the camera. The camera has loop recording, which is often used for cameras and does indeed offer a Car Mode but I have not seen in the User Guide that the camera has the G-Sensor needed to record and flag impacts. When set to Car Mode it automatically begins recording when a USB power cable is connected. For me, that is no big deal as I have yet to find an action camera that will actually work effectively as a Dashcam.

Like many more upmarket action cameras, it has wifi built in which means the camera generates a mini wifi network of its own which allows an attached phone have basic control the camera and viewed live-streamed video. To use it you need to download the “XDV” app from Apple or Android. The Android app is better than most and will stream a decent quality video stream, save images and video to the app. You can also perform OTA firmware upgrades via the app, a nice touch indeed. I doubt I will need to use the app as it is limited to remaining within the wifi hotspot for operation but there are situations where others might find it useful.
When an SD card is inserted you will be prompted to format the card. I found this could cause problems and it is safer to format the card to fat32 format in your computer and ignore messages from the camera.

This is a good quality action camera that can give excellent video and images in the right circumstances. It comes with an excellent range of mounts and accessories. The current discounted price is crazy and makes this a very attractive buy indeed.